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WHAT IS THE KADAP?

The idea of creating the Kinship and Data Analysis Panel (KADAP) to advise
officials in the New York City medical examiner’s office after the 9/11
attacks originated with W. Mark Dale, director of Forensic Services for the
New York State Police. When Dale realized that the number of World Trade Center
victims and the condition of their remains would require an unprecedented
DNA-based identification effort, he asked the National Institute of Justice
to create a “brain trust” of independent scientists to offer guidance
in this monumental task.

“I knew we were facing enormous management challenges,” Dale said.
“The notion that we were to reassociate potentially hundreds of thousands
of remains—let alone identify them by comparing their profiles to perhaps
tens of thousands of kin and effects profiles—was beyond daunting. We
needed human geneticists, statisticians, bioethicists, forensic DNA scientists/managers,
genetic researchers, information technologists, database managers, and program
managers—and we needed them fast.”

The breadth of the combined experience of the KADAP members is stunning.
The panel was comprised of scientists from the following agencies and universities:
the National Institutes of Health Human Genome Research Institute, the FBI,
the National Center for Biotechnology Informatics, the National Institute
of Standards and Technology, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, the
New York State Police Department, the New York City Office of the Chief Medical
Examiner, the University of Central Florida, Carleton University, Harvard
University, Yale University, Indiana University, the University of North Texas,
the University of California, Johns Hopkins University, and a number of private
DNA laboratories.

Members of the private and public sectors also provided testimony to the
panel that guided its recommendations. Early demonstrations of DNA matching
software, developed for other mass fatality situations, were an important
contribution. Input from the International Commission on Missing Persons in
Bosnia, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which shared a special computer
program that was used in the World Trade Center identification effort, was
also invaluable.